Interdependence is a modern myth accepted as sacred truth. Globally, interdependence
means that the different nations and various regions of the world need each
other. Socially, interdependence means that different members of society
are equally important. Personally, interdependence is the essential quality
of success, usually summed up in the ubiquitous term "networking."

Global interdependence is manifestly not part of human history, and although
a degree of interdependence arose during the periods of industrialization
and colonization, the trend is toward less and less dependence upon other
parts of the world.

Imperial Germany in the Great War was brought to its knees by the blockade,
even though that nation was a genuine superpower which ending up occupying
a good portion of the Russian Empire. Britain also, during the periods of
unrestricted U-Boat warfare, was almost brought to forced peace during the
Great War.

The democracies assumed that blockade would bring Hitler down in 1939, although
Germany proved vastly more capable of supplying its own needs during the
longer Second World War. Even excluding expropriations from conquered territories,
Nazi Germany simply never suffered hardships as a consequence of blockade.
Had the Allies not invested immense resources into strategic bombing, the
standard of living in Nazi Germany would have actually risen during the course
of the war.

Today, the economy is surely more "global" than ever before. Trade
is easy. Information flows quickly around the world. But the impact of efficient
trade and communication is not survival or even comfort. It is an increase
in relative comfort. The impact of technology and invention has been to make
nations increasing independent, not interdependent, upon trading partners.
No longer, we are told, can nations live alone. This has never been less
true. During the First World War, the blockade ultimately brought Imperial
Germany to its knees.

Nazis prepared Germany for autarky or complete independence from foreign
resources. Dismissed as crazy by internationalists at the time and even by
later historians, autarky actually worked incredibly well. Even discounting
resources seized by conquered nations, Nazi Germany suffered no serious material
deprivations during the war, except those created by allied bombing.

Oil, rubber, coffee and almost everything else could be created synthetically,
and food production was enough to feed Germany with few imports at all. Had
Germany not been at war, it could have shut its borders completely and lived
in reasonable comfort, and Germany did not even go on a wartime footing until
1942, three years into the war.

Even more stunning are the examples of Sweden and Switzerland, which suffered
hardships, but which never came close to being forced into allegiance with
the Axis, despite being nations with little farmland which were completely
surrounded by the Third Reich and its allies.

America, Russia and China could close their respective borders completely
and continue with adequate food, fuel and industrial production to live fairly
well. Trade is important for economic growth and niceties, but not to maintain
a healthy and productive society.

Within America this myth of interdependence appears in the guise of "diversity" and "education." Unless
we live together, we cannot truly live as Americans. This is also simply
not true. America is filled with groups who live apart, live well apart,
and could survive if the rest of humanity vanished tomorrow: Hassidim, Amish
and Mormons are among the most prominent examples of this.

The myth of interdependence is most insidious when it permeates society
to a level which many of us accept blithely without understanding what we
are embracing. Consider, for example, the perfectly innocent injunction made
by people of every political and philosophical persuasion that we should "network" more
to improve our lives.

Networking is considered a good per se because it leads to greater material
success. But what is the utility of greater material success? Modern nations
- those nations which are not "modern" have chosen not to be -
can easily feed, clothe, house and care for their populations. The amount
of time each week spent to actually produce these goods is piddling.

Consequently "networking" must be intended to provide other intangible
benefits. Certainly an exploration of reality in all its manifold expressions
and from all the myriad perspectives of perception and contemplation is a
critical pleasure of consciousness. What passes as an interchange of thought
and sentiment, however, has become a deliberate blurring of distinction.

Perhaps the most ubiquitous example the compromises needed to encourage
this superficial and silly "networking" is the proliferation of
euphemisms and neologisms with the stated purpose of modifying cognition.
Much of this is the odious and infamous Newspeak of political correctness,
a subject about which little more needs to be said.

But even in the jumping world of commerce and enterprise, this dilution
of difference pops up more and more. Problems have become "challenges" and
motivational speakers who have no sympathy for the crones of feminism embrace
the replacement of a descriptive word like "problem" or "difficulty" with
the Orwellian "challenge."

Corporations have notoriously adopted the "we are one" consensus
approach to society and industry which made Japan Inc. so fabulously popular
in the 1970s. Vision statements, mission statements, etc. are developed and
proclaimed without fundamental issues - do we really have anything in common
or share the same values? - left implicitly irrelevant.

What is both tragic and comic about this slippery descent into coerced community
is that the ultimate goals - monopoly money in an age of electronically calibrated
financial values - comes at a time in history when almost all true wealth
comes from the minds of misfit creators and isolated thinkers.

Homogeny in thought, language and sentiments has no value. Replication is
conspicuous in mass consumer economies, and when people become interchangeable
parts then they acquire the same value as the British Army at the Battle
of the Somme or the latest cacophony of mimicry called modern music.

Genius in its purest sense, not as a psychometric test score but as some
of its own kind, is what allowed military commanders to break the deadlock
of trench warfare and is what allowed the flourishing of jazz music, which
is the antithesis of rap music or the tamer, safer variations of rap.

Genius is the full expression of the individual, which requires a maximum
of independence and a minimum of interdependence. Hypothetically, "interdependence" is
the great salvation of mankind from the bane of war, but this is clearly
false. Germany and Japan were driven to aggressive war explicitly because
of a sense of interdependence.

Soviet Russia (with all its faults) and America were not dependent upon
other nations at all. Both of these very different polities did not want
war in 1939. Interdependence is the compulsory intercourse with those who
one does not like. Hardly the best way for achieving peace!

Bruce Walker is a senior writer with Enter Stage Right. He is also a frequent
contributor to The Pragmatist and The Common Conservative.